"Helvetia's last release, 2012's Nothing for Rambling, marked their seventh album in six years. Tonight, Helvetia are celebrating the release of Dromomania, their first new release in three years. While that gap could have had something to do with Albertini's role as bassist in Built to Spill, that wouldn't tell the whole story. It turns out a massive computer meltdown wiped out a nearly completed album back in 2013. Fortunately, those songs were recently recovered and released as A Dot Running for the Dust (The Lost Sessions), which makes for an excellent companion piece to Dromomania."- Portland Mercury

"The tail end of Thick Business was a wall of chugging, screeching noise spiked with blow-you-over vocals... We're disappointed we missed the bulk of the set, and if you weren't there, you should be too."- Hey Reverb

"Natural Changes, Boone's second album in a little over a year, is more of a companion piece to its predecessor than a follow-up, ever so much more lush and dreamy, but with an eye back toward the terrestrial world... Highlights include the acid-daydream "The Dolphin Turned Into a Cat" and the concluding title track, sure to be adopted as the go-to wedding song for crystal healers everywhere." -Willamette Week

"Deemed the “haunted mansion R&B band,” which is an incredibly fitting description... A considerable “super group,” they had no trouble fostering an ever developing and lasting following based on the sheer wealth of talent compiled into their one entity."- Noise & Color PDX

'"Color of Love" shows their playful and cooly executed exchange of masculine and feminine vocals. When combined with the pairing of clear synths and electric guitars... it creates an urbane blanket of delight."- The Deli Portland

[Album Release] AAN's Dada Distractions

"...the album finds Aan warmer, brighter, and more playful than ever, one that applies an artful, exploratory spirit to grunge sounds that first emerged from the Pacific Northwest a quarter-century ago. Wilson sings with the fierceness of Chris Cornell or Maynard James Keenan, but the delicately gleaming “Forever Underfoot” sounds more like it just dropped in from outer space." -Stereogum

"Equal parts Old Grape God (Wine) and EYRST's Ripley Snell (Coffee), Wine + Coffee is something like an improvisational hip-hop and R&B conceptual art piece—that is, if you dare label the project. There will be painting, rapping, a little freestyling, some singing, and some percolating. " -Portland Mercury

The Lower 48

"The band's newest release rubs the indie-rock stamp off its collective wrist to make room for enough genres to cover its entire forearm. The rough-and-tumbling, country-born "Threw It Away" leads right into the Spoon-esque "Jack in the Pulpit." A song later, with "Transition 1," the Lower 48 rides a wave of fuzzed-out surf rock. The band does in three consecutive songs what some struggle to do in three albums' time." -Willamette Week

BlackWater (HolyLight)

"Her personal message has always been clear—she is confident in the person she’s become and there are few things that she will compromise her integrity for. There’s no point in playing nice, “They say be Madonna don’t ever be the hoe/But why be a saint when she’s never in control.” Her call outs throw the big punches but it’s the playful lyricism that’ll sweep under you." -weouthere.net

Joined by Johanna Warren

“Tangerine make sweet melodies that nod to ‘60s pop and a little to R&B... guitar solos that are models of economy and lots of bashing, crashing drums. it’s dreamy lovely, stuff, with enough polish and gloss to attract non-indie fans." -The Guardian

"Blossom is a name you're going to hear a lot more this year... The singer, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago and honed her performing chops in her uncle's steel drum band, started her career in Portland singing hooks for various members of the local hip-hop underground, and since 2014 has been steadily releasing a string of EPs showing off her coolly understated vocal presence. On her latest single, issued through the increasingly prolific EYRST label, Blossom continues to refine her relaxed, almost ambient brand of R&B." -Willamette Week

9pm Orquestra Pacifico Tropical

"Roselit Bone play around with folk and country traditions but inject it with dust, blood, gasoline, and tears. It’s loud and rageful, it’s quiet and solemn…it’s probably one of the few bands, not just in Portland but in any city, keeping the flame of the oil lamp lit for this musical style. This is the best band in Portland right now.” -Spacerockmountain

"In fact, the whole band gels so cohesively that one might be surprised to learn that the Young Moon quartet only came together as these songs were being written... it's clear that Montgomery and the group have found something special. More broadly, the album establishes that the artist's return to music is a victory for both the himself and the listener as well." -The Bay Bridged

"Tango Alpha Tango has a new release in White Sugar, which ticks every box a modern rock and roll band hopes to check. From the first track forward, you’ll fall in love with these songs as if they were the comforting favorites you’ve sung along to your whole life. In the sea that is modern blues rock, White Sugar delivers such a refreshing take on a classic sound, Dan Auerbach wishes he would have written it." -Next NorthWest

"With “HYFY”, Astro Tan have created a song that is both classy and crude with all the attitude of music’s most notorious rebels. Sure, maybe Sinatra or Cole didn’t sing lines about being “fucking wasted”, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have agreed with the sentiment. Especially when said sentiment is presented in as fun and fresh a way as Astro Tan achieves with “HYFY”. -Impose

Kulululu

Møtrik

"With metronomic beats, undulating synths and a reference to early '80s post-punk in its "bass-as-lead" setup, there's nothing clandestine about the group's übergruven roots. The real left turn comes after the requisite atonal buildups." -Willamette Week

Each Both

"...enjoy a wacky, clap-happy trip around inner SE Portland with the video for album single “Old News.” The tune, warm and loungy, is akin to something Julian Casablancas might have written, were he from the west coast." -Noise & Color PDX

"On songs like the fiery "Razor Tongue," Capes engages closely with the country's legacy of racial inequality, pointedly bouncing from references to broken homes and race wars, from Ronald Reagan to Marcus Garvey. He acknowledges that, if things had gone just a little differently for him, he easily "coulda been slangin', bangin', a killer, even a pimp." If listeners take offense to any of it, his answer is curt: "I don't really care if someone feels uncomfortable with me speaking on something I feel is wrong." -Willamette Week Best New Band 2016

"Sounds like: A series of Southern-fried subreddits set to stark, minimalist beats... Upon releasing his recent full-length, Sankofa—an urgent hybrid of personal and political themes with dark beats that are both club-ready and sharply critical of club-rap mentality—it seemed to appear everywhere, on local Facebook pages and Twitter feeds, due in large part to the collective mentality of [artist collective] FRSH TRB's members." -Willamette Week Best New Band 2015

"Listen to Koroma’s Osiris EP and you can practically hear the North Portland emcee’s confidence pouring from the speakers. Just six tracks long, Osiris is an efficient amalgam of sturdy rhymes, wavy beats, and a finely tuned aesthetic, right down to the vintage video-game cover art. Along for the ride are a small handful of guests, including Zoo? and Slick Devious, Koroma’s cohorts in local hip-hop collective Renaissance Coalition." -Portland Mercury

"There's a subtle sexuality that penetrates Minden's saccharine indie pop. Erotic themes of bondage and role playing juxtapose with frontman Casey Burge's lighter subjects, such as searching for authenticity while selecting the right soda pop — it's all enough to leave one wiping his brow and licking her lips. On the Portland quintet's new album Sweet, Simple Things, Burge and his band — Lia Gist (vocals), James Taylor (guitar), Evan Houston (bass), Ryan Johnson (drums), Dan Talmadge (keys) and Papi Fimbres (percussion) — hone an evocative collection of smooth and danceable tunes, indulging in confectionary hooks laid over funky grooves. The nine song LP is delicious in its oddity, befitting feel good moments from West Coast summers to Parisian night clubs." -Hit City U.S.A.

"Portland’s Reptaliens have just revealed their debut lo-fi single Forced Entry. While the band may be new, the members are definitely veterans of the music circuit, bringing to the table their past experiences from Portland bands Blouse (Captured Tracks), Wampire (Polyvinyl), and Brainstorm (Tender Loving Empire)." -Culture Addicts

"...on Holyland, Hustle and Drone employs maximalist production to deliver a dynamic, bombastic rock record that's more now than any drums-and-guitar rock record in recent memory. It certainly exists in the realm of the robotic: Beyond woolly basslines and piles of vocal tracks, machines rule this record from start to finish. It's the heavy heart with which frontman Ryan Neighbors (formerly of Portugal the Man) conveys universal feelings of existential dread ("Bhikshu"), spirituality ("The Glow") and desperation ("I Just Need Some Money") that makes Holyland more of an organic, cathartic experience than the trunk-rattling 808s and digitized clipping may imply on first listen." -Willamette Week

“It’s easy to call Monuments one of the most confident, assured debut albums from a Portland band pretty much ever. There’s nothing tentative about this music…The writing is strong, the performance passionate and powerful, the production rich and nuanced, and the tracks trendless and timeless…” -Eleven PDX Magazine

"If Hot Fool is an exercise in versatility, then Portland trio the Lower 48 is fit for the task. The band's newest release rubs the indie-rock stamp off its collective wrist to make room for enough genres to cover its entire forearm. The rough-and-tumbling, country-born "Threw It Away" leads right into the Spoon-esque "Jack in the Pulpit." A song later, with "Transition 1," the Lower 48 rides a wave of fuzzed-out surf rock. The band does in three consecutive songs what some struggle to do in three albums' time." -Willamette Week

"Jesse Bettis knows how to get inside your head. A high-order pop technician, he builds songs using only the finest parts, rummaged from the universal pleasure chest of 20th-century sounds—the Beatles and Beach Boys, doo-wop and glam rock—and refinished with modern production gloss. Whether that makes him a well-studied classicist or a historical scavenger depends on how much innovation you demand of your songwriters, but you can't come away from New Move's debut full-length without at least a few tunes tunneling through your heart and burrowing into your brain." -Willamette Week

"In their second life, the songs on When the Water's Hot have a folk vulnerability as their skeleton, but they're veined, muscled, and skinned by sultry tones of bluesy guitar, minimal pulsing percussion, and subtle cello melodies. The album achieves the same level of sparse intimacy as Rose's past work, but the new electric arrangements discreetly strengthen the songs." -Portland Mercury

"Laura Palmer's Death Parade is led by singer-songwriter Laura Hopkins. Her musical inspirations span from Patsy Cline to Black Sabbath, and the songs have a dark edge to them, with brutally honest lyrics, yet Laura's live performance holds a kind of mesmerizing beauty." -Travel Portland

"New York's King Radio is definitely bold—you don't build a band with equal parts pedal steel and trombone while tackling both Americana and classic soul unless you're pretty confident you can make that shit work." - Portland Mercury

"Luz Elena Mendoza and Death Songs' Nick Delffs connected creatively when their bands shared a 2012 tour down the West Coast. Upon returning home to Portland, that connection was never intended to evolve into a new band. It just did so on its own....Three years after that initial tour, Mendoza and Delffs' band, Tiburones, is releasing its debut album, Eva. [The album] smolders and soars with the kind of folkloric, Latin-tinged indie-pop that has made Y La Bamba one of Portland's most beloved bands. At the same time, it skitters with a jittery brand of rock 'n' soul, à la Death Songs and Delffs' previous band, the Shaky Hands." -Portland Mercury

"On Piano Pills, his latest record under the Seance Crasher name, the hours Rafn logged playing in what he calls "riff-rock bands" can be found under delicate layers of vocals and groovy synth flourishes. He certainly learned a thing or two in his prior post as the synth operator for Wampire, but the resignation to lighter material still hits with a wallop at the end of "Have You Ever Been in LA?" and the bouncy guitar and vocal dubs that "Strange Paintings" rides into the sunset. The mixes are full of lush melodrama, but the analog approach Rafn has used in Seance Crasher keeps his peculiar brand of studio pop feeling both ambitious and tidy in all the right places." -Willamette Week

Sun Angle

"Drummer Papi Fimbres plays nearly untrackable polyrhythms that mock all notion of offbeat and downbeat. Like latter-day Coltrane, he often seems to want to play all rhythm—all sound—at once... blazing cumbia rhythms at the breakneck tempos of punk. Meanwhile, Salas-Humara—who counts punk, krautrock and washed-out psychedelia... as influences—lacquers layers of delay-pedaled, psych-prog guitar over the top of Fimbres' wild tom patterns and damped cymbal work, or slashes through the fray with syncopated riffs sometimes reminiscent of the art-damaged dance punk of Les Savy Fav.It's an experiment in chaos and control, the control being Marius Libman's fast, circular basslines. Without him, the whole damn production might just blow away." -Willamette Week Best New Band 2013

Ice Queens

"...cranking out the sort of bent, forceful rock that isn't getting much play in Portland these days. It's tightly wound and confidently played, wrapping loud, distorted guitars and breathy melodies around herky-jerky time signatures, nodding to Smashing Pumpkins as much as Polvo." -Willamette Week

Ghost Frog

Times Infinity

Câlisse

"The songs have a bipolar edge executed so precisely it's hard to imagine the musicians were all barely more than strangers... Collette employs a playful, elastic tweak to some of his phrasing that's reminiscent of Frog Eyes' Carey Mercer, and his vocal melodies are interlocked with unexpected instrumental bursts of brass or low-end boom that negate any sort of expectation." -Willamette Week

Join us for Arlo Indigo's album release with Ali Muhareb and *Special Guests TBA*

"It's in the flesh that Marshall excels; his shows are epic, awkward interactions between audience and performer. The first thing you notice about the lanky crooner is just how he commands the stage... his presence is built on singers who command the stage: Nick Cave, Suicide's Alan Vega, even Dean Martin. Marshall grew up on the Vegas strip, and the seedy glitz of the casino life has sunk its way into the music. He's a lounge singer—just not in the traditional sense." -- Willamette Week

'"2 Young 2 Know" is a snapshot of the emotional place between starry-eyed hope and late-night anxiety. Landing somewhere between Tears for Fears and My Bloody Valentine, NRVS LVRS have taken the particular days when your responsibility-free teenage years begin to creep into existential crisis and turned them into magic." -Vice

"Portland’s Reptaliens have just revealed their debut lo-fi single Forced Entry. While the band may be new, the members are definitely veterans of the music circuit, bringing to the table their past experiences from Portland bands Blouse (Captured Tracks), Wampire (Polyvinyl), and Brainstorm (Tender Loving Empire)." -Culture Addicts

"The Stargazer Lilies possess a truly widescreen, cinematic sound with crescendoes that build cascading waves of sound enveloping your whole body. The music is a bit darker than standard dream pop fare, but that only makes it that much more mesmerizing.” -Pop Matters

"The contrast between the easy-listening harmonies our parents grew up on and the whip-smart lyrics describing someone who could be your neighbor, your yoga teacher or yourself makes for an amusing listen that is quintessentially Portland." -Willamette Week

"Quite a Feelin' doesn't just sound like something written in the '70s—it looks and feels like an old LP that you stumbled upon in a musty cardboard box at a garage sale. From the faded cover photo and outmoded typography to the vintage production and the stark Townes Van Zandt-style country-folk, Quite a Feelin' could easily pass for a lost classic by a beloved cult artist." -Portland Mercury

"You can hear those influences throughout Confederate Burial, his second album as Snowblind Traveler (which he's reissuing on vinyl this week), from "Lobster," a song carried by a loose acoustic melody, whistles and colorful jaunts of piano, to "Osprey," a dark, murmuring track led by eerie, echoing tremolos of mandolin. The carefully crafted hooks and song arrangements nod to his biggest inspirations, the Beatles and the Beach Boys. But the lyrics are haunted by the ghosts of the Civil War." -Willamette Week

"Alina Cutrono draws on dark and confessional subject matter for her debut EP as Alina Bea, Live Undone. In the wake of a cataclysmic life change resulting from the end of a five-­year relationship and the dissolution of her beloved band Body Parts, Live Undoneis an exclamation of shocked loss and an empowered scream of defiance, with an adventurous electronic pop palette that calls to mind Kate Bush, St. Vincent and Empress Of."